Does Jackson Have The Right Idea?

Angela’s post on Jesse Jackson calling Obama out on “Acting White” on the Jena Six issue inspires a few of my own musings. I don’t like the specific rhetoric, but would it really be a bad thing if the Black leadership and community started building in a concern for social justice and concern for those who “haven’t made it” into the idea of Blackness?

Certainly, if Black folk are going to chide their compatriots for certain behavior via the “acting White” epithet, I’d rather it be behavior we actually want them to eschew (avoiding speaking out against racism and social injustice) than behavior we want them to pursue (academic excellence, in the “stereotypical” “acting White” example) — although, as I explain in post, I don’t think “acting White” is really the best or proper way of putting it, necessarily.